Tag Archives: Massachusetts

Opposition to Zohydro, the powerful new opiate some critics are calling “heroin in a pill,” continues to build, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is strongly defending the agency’s approval of the drug, saying its benefits to pain patients outweigh the potential negative consequences.

Since its approval by the FDA last October, Zohydro has come under fire from members of Congress, state attorneys general, doctors and addiction specialists who have worked to block the pill from being sold in the U.S., according to this article. Critics want the agency to rescind its approval of Zohydro, citing the alleged danger of the drug as well as the growing abuse of prescription drugs nationwide, but the FDA says that instead of blocking the sale of Zohydro based on a fear of abuse and addiction, providers should screen patients before they prescribe the drug and while they are on it, the article says.

A federal judge has struck down Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s ban on the controversial new form of hydrocodone, Zohydro, saying the state lacked the authority to override the FDA’s approval of the painkiller. U.S. District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel noted that the FDA approved Zohydro after a screening process, and said the federal regulatory agency has more power than the state in this case, according to this article. She also said Massachusetts lacked the authority to force Zohydro’s maker, Zogenix, to make an abuse-resistant form of the drug because that formulation has not been approved by the FDA, the article says.

Gov. Patrick issued the Zohydro ban last month, declaring a public health emergency in response to the state’s growing opioid addiction epidemic and taking a number of other steps to curb overdoses and help the addicted. In a press release, the governor said the use of oxycodone and other narcotic painkillers, often as a route to heroin addiction, has been on the rise for the last few years in Massachusetts; at least 140 people have died from suspected heroin overdoses in communities across the state in the last several months, levels previously unseen. From 2000 to 2012, the number of unintentional opiate overdoses increased by 90 percent, he added.

In Oklahoma, unintentional prescription drug overdoses claimed the lives of 534 residents in 2012; state health authorities say about half of them had taken drugs prescribed by their own doctors, according to this article.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has declared a public health emergency in response to the state’s growing opioid addiction epidemic, issuing an order banning the controversial new form of hydrocodone, Zohydro, and taking a number of other steps to curb overdoses and help the addicted. In a press release, the governor said the use of oxycodone and other narcotic painkillers, often as a route to heroin addiction, has been on the rise for the last few years in Massachusetts; at least 140 people have died from suspected heroin overdoses in communities across the state in the last several months, levels previously unseen. From 2000 to 2012, the number of unintentional opiate overdoses increased by 90 percent, he added. The prescribing and dispensing of Zohydro, which was recently approved for sale by the FDA despite widespread protests, will be prohibited “until it is determined that adequate measures are in place to safeguard against the potential for diversion, overdose and misuse,” he said. The governor added:

The introduction of this new painkiller into the market poses a significant risk to individuals already addicted to opiates and to the public at large. Read more...